For the record - 1962 Formula 1

Not sure if what follows is simply too anorak to be digestible, but this month's 'Motor Sport' carries an extensive feature recalling the Formula1 season of 1962 which I think deserves just a little extra info being made available. Some of the gen assembled for that feature ended up (quite justifiably in fact) on the sub-editor's spike. But while the specific history trails of cars, or rather chassis identities, has been pretty well recorded, that of individual engines is mentioned relatively rarely. Well, in tribute to the efforts of those designers, draughtsmen, engineers, fitters and fettlers of fifty years ago here's the best engine identity gen that I could glean for who and which was powered by what amongst that season's main contestants - Team Lotus and BRM. For what it's worth, based upon surviving works team records and excepting only the Mallory Park 2000 Guineas race, here goes:

[quote name='Doug Nye' date='Apr 27 2012, 21:23' post='5691011']
Not sure if what follows is simply too anorak to be digestible, but this month's 'Motor Sport' carries an extensive feature recalling the Formula1 season of 1962 which I think deserves just a little extra info being made available. Some of the gen assembled for that feature ended up (quite justifiably in fact) on the sub-editor's spike. But while the specific history trails of cars, or rather chassis identities, has been pretty well recorded, that of individual engines is mentioned relatively rarely. Well, in tribute to the efforts of those designers, draughtsmen, engineers, fitters and fettlers of fifty years ago here's the best engine identity gen that I could glean for who and which was powered by what amongst that season's main contestants - Team Lotus and BRM. For what it's worth, based upon surviving works team records and excepting only the Mallory Park 2000 Guineas race, here goes:

Sort of like when you have a song running through your head...and you have to hear it again before it drives you crazy. For me this week, it's been "La Plume de ma Tante" (Hugo and Luigi, 1959)

At any rate, well done! Very interesting stuff. I am helping take care of photo collection of the late Canadian photographer Ted Langton-Adams. This includes some great shots from the 1962 Dutch and Monaco GPs (and Nurburgring 1000 km). Please let me know if you are looking for anything.

And I didn't know until reading the article in this month's MotorSport that the original intention was to have a column change in the Lotus 25.

David

By coincidence I was looking for something else in Maurice Hamilton's history of the British GP today and found a mention there: "Originally, there had been talk of a column gearchange but Chapman was persuaded to find more space for the more conventional shift."

Original casually posted draft text now amended at the top of this thread - I will eventually hunt out the Mallory Park detail, regardless of whether anyone else cares, or not....just so it's here, on the record. The 1962 season was the first I really followed in detail, 50 years ago, and those memories remain very vivid and special to me - as do many of the personalities involved.

The Lotus-BRM at Monaco was not a phantom of my imagining, nor was it 24 chassis '950' as in Bjorn's post above, but what I initially listed above (now corrected) was an error of omission rather than commission, because there was a line missing above it (damned computers). The relevant Team Lotus record of Monaco 1962 actually read - save for the explanatory wording in brackets - as follows:

So the Lotus-BRM taken there was recorded by Team as chassis '949', in which the BRM V8 engine drove through a Colotti T34 gearbox. There was a works Lotus-BRM 24 at Monte Carlo, but it was not used on race day.

Right that's those balls dealt with, now retaking guard for the next delivery...

Originally posted by Barry BoorWhat a great season in which to fall in love with Grand Prix racing - unless you were a Ferrari fan!

Indeed, a great season...

I know I was pretty starry-eyed about it all, and there was all that new development going on, so many in with a chance, Jack's new car debutted too.

On the subject of using the BRM engine, I guess it was logical for Team Lotus to have their bases covered in case BRM had a significant edge over the Climax as things developed. But for the life of me I cannot remember it being mentioned in any of the reports I read!

Mind you, as mentioned before, my first Motor Sport covered the German GP some three months later.

Another thing a baptism in that year brought was great anticipation of what would happen when the new F1 was announced to be coming in 1966. I guess that announcement came at the end of '63 or the beginning of '64?

Another thing a baptism in that year brought was great anticipation of what would happen when the new F1 was announced to be coming in 1966. I guess that announcement came at the end of '63 or the beginning of '64?

The contemporary Motor Sport (DSJ) says that at Brussels Siffert drove a F3 Lotus 22 with a 1.5 litre Ford-Coswarth engine loaned to him by Lotus and that Taylor drove the new car intended for Siffert described as a V8 chassis (ie a 24) with a Climax 4 and 1961 suspension, but later race reports, eg Zandvoort, have Siffert in a Lotus 21. So what did Taylor drive at Brussels?

The contemporary Motor Sport (DSJ) says that at Brussels Siffert drove a F3 Lotus 22 with a 1.5 litre Ford-Coswarth engine loaned to him by Lotus and that Taylor drove the new car intended for Siffert described as a V8 chassis (ie a 24) with a Climax 4 and 1962 suspension, but later race reports, eg Zandvoort, have Siffert in a Lotus 21. So what did Taylor drive at Brussels?

It actually says 1961 suspension. The car certainly did have 21 front uprights and the lower engine cover of a 21. It could have been a 24 for all that, I suppose.

re the Lotus BRM. I have seen a quote where Parnell bought Lotus chassis and Chapman asked him where he would get the Climax engines. Parnell said he was using BRMs and Chapman told him the car would not work with the BRM engine as it was designed for the Climax characteristics.

So following the history of this 62 car. Did the BRM engine actually belong to Siffert? Seems Lotus fit the BRM engine to the chassis and use it as a starting money special until the usually cash strapped Siffert pays for the car? The use and races the car does for Lotus would seem to suggest that.

This should point to Simon Lewis's site showing Trevor Taylor in the Aintree 200. I can believe that this is a 24 with FPF engine but it is not the same as the car he drove in Brussels and at Snetterton.

As a bloke who is always preaching that we should trust the photographic record rather than the written record the words petard and hoist spring to mind...

And as I have bleated elsewhere recently,"if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's almost certainly...." - a Lotus 21.

BUT Trevor's Brussels car is described by DSJ in his 'Motor Sport' report (as pointed out before in this thread) as having comprised "...a V8 type chassis frame with 4-cylinder Coventry Climax engine and Colotti gearbox but with 1961 suspension all round. This special car has been built for the Swiss driver Siffert, who was due to take delivery after the race!". Jenks listed it in his Brussels GP entry table as "New car to special order". However, his notebook used at Brussels includes just this scribbled line on Trevor's car there: "1961 car with Colotti box,sold to Siffert". He then noted in Heat 1 "Taylor gearchange trouble" and in Heat 2 "Taylor struck Mairesse when he spun and came back" and "7 lost wheel" - 7 being Taylor's race number. The photograph from 'Autosport' shows the low-mounted steering arm and track rod of the Lotus 21 suspension - and the body is true 21, no doubt about that. This doesn't change the Type 24 identity noted by Jim Endruweit for Team there - so
maybe what Jenks had plainly been told was correct and it was a new 24 frame. But to be so it would have had to carry Type 21 body panels, as well as the 21 suspension. The standard Type 21 outfit was Climax FPF 4-cyl engine driving through a ZF gearbox, yet here the FPF was mated to a Colotti - again inferring something unusual.

Yet for the following Pau GP - Jenks ignored Snetterton, hem hem - his notebook lists Trevor Taylor's Lotus-Climax 4 as being "new 1962 works car with 4 cyl engine". So would this infer a new car at Pau, or 'the' new car - i.e. 24 frame, 4-cyl FPF engine - at Pau...?

At Brussels Siffert was noted as driving "Lotus-Climax 4' - Climax crossed-out and replaced with 'Ford' then "Junior with Cosworth-Ford 1100 bore Classic crank 1500cc VW box". Jenks always liked Seppi as a real racer, and a tough motor-cycle racer at that, and during practice at Heysel he wrote: "Siffert passing Porsches with Cosworth Junior!".And what did Siffert drive at Pau, since he had been billed as due to take delivery of Trevor's Brussels car after that race? Jenks's notebook lists the Swiss driver's car merely as "Lotus-Climax 4"...inferring the ex-Taylor Brussels 21 or 24/21, whichever it was.

Where John Thompson got his attribution of '938' from I have no idea. If it had been '938' one would expect Team's admittedly sketchy but more or less contemporaneous record keeping to show that number - not the '949' it does in fact show. Considering the technical detail also recorded in these sheets, wilfully entering a dodgy chassis ID makes no sense, since that could merely lead to engineering confusion.

Neither is it a record that would ever expect outside scrutiny, perhaps by the dreaded HM Customs & Excise.

The Lotus Type 24 had a 1-inch longer wheelbase than the Type 21. Type 21 front uprights had a low to mid-level steering arm and track-rod very obvious in the picture of Trevor's car being recovered from the Heysel verge, whereas the Type 24 front uprights had a high-level steering arm and track-rod level with the suspension system's top rocker arm, to minimise airflow disturbance. Trevor's car at Heysel and Snetterton most definitely featured the 21 front suspension, but Team's record keeper considered it to be a 4-cylinder engined 24. The record wouldn't have been shown to Jo Siffert - the customer - and his backer Filipinetti. So who was fooling who? This is a peculiar business - just as I was feeling fat and happy - and thank you Roger for first wielding the shovel.

Originally posted by Doug Nye.....Type 21 front uprights had a low to mid-level steering arm and track-rod very obvious in the picture of Trevor's car being recovered from the Heysel verge, whereas the Type 24 front uprights had a high-level steering arm and track-rod level with the suspension system's top rocker arm, to minimise airflow disturbance....

And make it easy to avoid bump steer...

The uprights being from a Triumph Mayflower, if I recall the thread about their makers correctly.